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Palestine: «étranglements, enlèvements, tortures et exécutions sommaires de Palestiniens tués par les forces du Hamas durant le conflit de Gaza/Israël en 2014
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STRANGLING NECKS ABDUCTIONS, TORTURE AND SUMMARY KILLINGS OF PALESTINIANS BY HAMAS FORCES DURING THE 2014 GAZA/ISRAEL CONFLICT
Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................... 3
Methodology ................................................................................................................ 8
Background ................................................................................................................. 9
Gaza criminal justice system under Hamas ................................................................ 11
Abductions, torture, and unlawful killings ..................................................................... 13
Ayman Taha ........................................................................................................... 15
Other killings during the period................................................................................. 27
House arrests, abduction, torture, and physical assaults against Fatah members and
members of the PA security forces ............................................................................... 27
Applicable Law........................................................................................................... 34
International humanitarian law ................................................................................. 34
International human rights law ................................................................................. 35
International criminal law ........................................................................................ 37
Palestinian law ....................................................................................................... 37
No Accountability ....................................................................................................... 39
Conclusion and recommendations ................................................................................ 42
To Palestine ........................................................................................................... 42
To Israel ................................................................................................................. 43
To other governments .............................................................................................. 44
Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 7 million people who
campaign for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all.
Our vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.
We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or
religion and are funded mainly by our membership and public donations.
First published in 2015 by Amnesty International Ltd
Peter Benenson House 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW
United Kingdom Amnesty International 2015
Index: MDE 21/1643/2015 English Original language: English
Printed by Amnesty International, International Secretariat, United Kingdom
All rights reserved. This publication is copyright, but may be reproduced by any method without fee for advocacy, campaigning and teaching purposes, but not for resale.
The copyright holders request that all such use be registered with them for impact assessment purposes. For copying in any other circumstances, or for reuse in other
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To request permission, or for any other inquiries, please contact copyright@amnesty.org
Cover photo: Hamas militants grab a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel before he is executed in Gaza City, 22 August 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
amnesty.org
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CONTENTS Executive summary ....................................................................................................... 5
Methodology ................................................................................................................. 8
Background .................................................................................................................. 9
Gazas criminal justice system under Hamas............................................................... 11
Abductions, torture and unlawful killings of alleged collaborators ..................................... 13
Ayman Taha ............................................................................................................ 15
Other killings during the period ................................................................................. 27
Abductions, torture and assaults of members of Fatah and PA security forces ................... 28
Applicable law ............................................................................................................ 34
International humanitarian law .................................................................................. 34
International human rights law .................................................................................. 35
International criminal law ......................................................................................... 37
Palestinian law ........................................................................................................ 37
Conclusion and recommendations ................................................................................. 42
To the Palestinian authorities .................................................................................... 42
To the Israeli authorities ........................................................................................... 43
To other governments ............................................................................................... 44
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Hamas forces in Gaza committed serious human rights abuses, including abductions, torture,
and summary and extrajudicial executions with impunity in 2014. To date, no one has been
held to account for committing these unlawful killings and other abuses, either by the Hamas
de facto administration that continues to control Gaza and its security and judicial
institutions, or by the Palestinian national consensus government that has had nominal
authority over Gaza since June 2014.
Hamas forces committed these abuses at the time of Israels 50-day military offensive
against Gaza, codenamed Operation Protective Edge, which began on 8 July and ended on
26 August 2014. The offensive, the third such punitive Israeli military operation against
Gaza since 2008, caused unprecedented damage and destruction to civilian life in Gaza.
According to the UN, Israel inflicted the highest number of civilian casualties among
Palestinians in a single year since it occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.
Israeli military forces committed war crimes and other grave violations of international law
during Operation Protective Edge. Israeli air and ground attacks killed more than 1,500
civilians, including more than 500 children, and caused massive destruction to civilian
infrastructure. The impact of this devastation has been exacerbated since Operation
Protective Edge by Israels continuing air, sea and land blockade of Gaza, which it has
imposed since 2007. The extent of the casualties and destruction in Gaza wrought by Israeli
forces far exceeded those caused by Palestinian attacks on Israel, reflecting Israels far
greater firepower, among other factors. The war understandably caused public outrage in
Gaza against Israel and those who supported or condoned its offensive, including other states
and, specifically, Palestinians within Gaza who were accused of acting as Israeli informants
or collaborators. During the period of Operation Protective Edge, Hamas and Palestinian
armed groups in Gaza committed war crimes by firing thousands of indiscriminate rockets
and other projectiles into southern Israel.
Amnesty International has been unable to send a delegation to visit the Gaza Strip since the
beginning of the July/August 2014 conflict. Amnesty International consequently had to carry
out research on this report remotely, supported by a fieldworker based in Gaza. The
organization conducted interviews with former detainees, prisoners families, witnesses to
abuses, human right activists, journalists and others. Among other documentation, it
reviewed and analysed written reports of court proceedings, medical reports, death
certificates, public statements issued by Hamas and Palestinian groups in Gaza. Amnesty
International wrote to the Palestinian authorities in December 2014 to request comments on
its findings, but received no response.
Within Gaza, Hamas forces also targeted Palestinians they accused of assisting Israel. They
subjected at least 23 people to summary, extrajudicial executions. Six of these men, at least
one of whom was arrested during the conflict on suspicion of collaboration but never
formally charged, were extrajudicially executed in public on 22 August 2014. Three men
died in custody in suspicious circumstances just a few days after they were arrested and
tortured. The fate and whereabouts of another man whom Hamas forces detained and
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subjected to enforced disappearance in the first week of Operation Protective Edge remains
unknown more than nine months after the conflict ended. In addition, a leading member of
Hamas, Ayman Taha, who had been held by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (al-Qassam
Brigades) since January 2014 on suspicion of treason but, to Amnesty Internationals
knowledge, was not presented with any formal charges, appears to have been summarily
killed. Hamas forces also abducted or attacked members and supporters of Fatah, their main
rival political organization within Gaza, including former members of the Palestinian
Authority (PA) security forces, torturing some of them.
This report documents 17 of the summary, extrajudicial executions committed by Hamas
forces during Operation Protective Edge. In six cases, those executed had been sentenced to
death by military courts in Gaza on charges of collaborating with Israel brought under the
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979. However, at the
time of their execution they were still awaiting the outcome of appeals against those death
sentences. Two others had been convicted and sentenced to prison terms, one to life
imprisonment, and the other to 15 years. All eight had been sentenced after trials before
courts whose proceedings are unfair and fail to respect due process. Some alleged in court
that they were tortured in pre-trial detention and forced to confess to collaboration with
Israel. Eight other detainees facing collaboration charges were taken out and summarily
executed although their trials had yet to be completed.
Prior to their executions, all of the victims were held by Gazas Hamas de facto
administration at Katiba Prison under the authority of the Gazan Ministry of Interior as
alleged collaborators with Israel; in most cases known to Amnesty International, they faced
charges under the PLO Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979 but were still standing trial at the
time of their execution.
Hamas forces used the abandoned areas of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, including the
outpatients clinic area, to detain, interrogate, torture and otherwise ill-treat suspects, even
as other parts of the hospital continued to function as a medical centre.
The report also describes other cases in which Hamas forces abducted, torture or assaulted
perceived opponents, particularly members of the rival Fatah party and former members of
the PA security forces in Gaza, in some cases causing their deaths. These abuses too were
committed with impunity.
Many of the arrests looked more like abductions with armed men in civilian clothes,
sometimes masked, who did not present identification or a legal basis for arrest, forcing the
suspects into a car and taking them to locations unknown to their families. The suspects
would often be beaten in the car and the beatings would continue at the place of detention
and during the interrogation.
In every case Amnesty International has documented, it has uncovered evidence of Hamas
forces using torture during interrogation with the apparent aim of extracting a confession
from the detainee. Testimonies indicate that victims of torture were beaten with truncheons,
gun butts, hoses, wire, and fists; some were also burnt with fire, hot metal or acid. In several
cases family members of victims described to Amnesty International various injuries inflicted
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on the detainees, such as broken bones including of the spine and neck bones trauma to
the eyes, as well as damage, punctures or burns to the skin.
The torture and summary killing of people in captivity including suspected informers or
collaborators are, when committed in the context of an armed conflict, serious violations
of international humanitarian law, constituting war crimes.
The Palestinian authorities should ensure that allegations of such crimes are impartially and
independently investigated and bring the perpetrators to justice in proceedings that fully
respect international fair trial standards and exclude the death penalty.
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METHODOLOGY Amnesty International has been unable to send a delegation of researchers, including
medical and other experts, to visit the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the July/August
2014 conflict. The Israeli authorities have refused, up to the time of finalizing this report,
more than nine months after the hostilities ended, to allow Amnesty International and other
researchers from international human rights organizations to enter the Gaza Strip through the
Erez crossing with Israel, despite the organizations repeated requests for entry since the
beginning of the conflict. Neither have the Egyptian authorities granted Amnesty
International permission to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, again
despite the organizations repeated requests for access.
Amnesty International consequently had to carry out research on this report remotely,
supported by a fieldworker based in Gaza. The organization conducted interviews with former
detainees, prisoners families, witnesses to abuses, human right activists, journalists, and
others. It reviewed and analysed written reports of court proceedings, medical reports, death
certificates, public statements issued by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza, as well
as media reports and reports and other documentation issued by UN agencies, Palestinian
and Israeli NGOs, and others.
Amnesty International wrote in December 2014 to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
and Minister of Justice Salim al-Saqqa, one of the four Gaza-based ministers in the
Palestinian national consensus government, summarizing its findings and concerns,
inviting comment on these and asking about any official investigations into the serious
human rights abuses documented. No responses had been received, however, by 22 May
2015, as this report was finalized.
Some names of victims and others have been omitted from the report to safeguard them
against possible reprisals by Hamas forces or others.
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BACKGROUND Israel has been the occupying power with overall control of the Occupied Palestinian
Territories since June 1967. The Oslo Accords agreed between Israel and the PLO in 1994
provided for a degree of Palestinian self-rule in parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Neither the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994 nor the recognition of
Palestine as a non-member observer state at the UN General Assembly in 2012 changed the
status of the Occupied Palestinian Territories under international law; they remain territories
under Israeli military occupation over which Israel maintains effective control, including
control of the population, natural resources and, with the exception of Gazas short southern
border with Egypt, their land and sea borders and air space.
In 2006 Hamas won elections to the PAs legislature. This led a number of states to impose
economic and other sanctions and increased tensions with Hamass rival party, Fatah,
culminating in violent conflict. Within Gaza, armed clashes between security forces and
militias loyal to Fatah on the one hand and Hamas on the other escalated in the first half of
2007 and resulted in Hamas seizing control of PA institutions in the Gaza Strip. Following
this, Hamas installed a de facto administration that has remained in power there since June
2007. For almost seven years two separate Palestinian governments operated one
dominated by the Fatah party in the West Bank, and one run by the Hamas party in the Gaza
Strip. This situation persisted until unity talks resulted in the appointment of a national
consensus government, including four ministers from the Gaza Strip, which was sworn into
office by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on 2 June 2014. The cabinet of
independent technocrats was tasked with running civilian affairs in both areas and preparing
for parliamentary and presidential elections. However, very significant disagreements between
Fatah and Hamas remain unresolved, no date for elections has been set, and the national
consensus government has yet to assume most of its functions in the Gaza Strip, where the
Hamas de facto administration continues to control government institutions and the security
forces in practice.
On 8 July 2014, before the deal for a national consensus government had been
implemented, Israel launched a military operation codenamed Operation Protective Edge, the
third major offensive in Gaza since 2008. By the time a final ceasefire agreement was
reached on 26 August 2014, 50 days later, the Israeli offensive had killed 2,256 people in
Gaza, including 1,568 civilians, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The dead included 538 children and 306 women. More than
11,000 other Palestinians were injured, many permanently. According to the UN, Israel
inflicted the highest number of civilian casualties among Palestinians in a single year since it
occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.1
1 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Fragmented Lives:
Humanitarian Overview 2014, March 2015,
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/annual_humanitarian_overview_2014_english_final.pdf (last accessed
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The UN estimated that about 18,000 housing units were destroyed or rendered
uninhabitable, leaving approximately 108,000 people homeless. A further 37,650 housing
units were damaged. The economic infrastructure in Gaza was seriously degraded by Israeli
attacks; the only power plant was damaged, as was the wastewater system, leaving 20 to
30% of households without access to municipal water. In an area with 45% unemployment,
419 businesses and workshops were damaged, of which 128 were destroyed, according to
the Palestinian Federation of Industries. Since the end of the conflict, its destructive impact
has been exacerbated by Israels continuing blockade, in force since June 2007, which
severely curtails imports and prevents all or most exports. This contributes to widespread
impoverishment of Gazas 1.8 million inhabitants and hampers post-conflict reconstruction.
As Amnesty International has reported elsewhere, Israeli military forces committed war
crimes and other grave violations of international law during Operation Protective Edge.2 The
extent of the casualties and destruction in Gaza wrought by Israeli forces far exceeded those
caused by Palestinian attacks on Israel, reflecting Israels far greater firepower, among other
factors. The war understandably caused public outrage in Gaza against Israel and those who
supported or condoned its offensive, including other states and, specifically, Palestinians
within Gaza who were accused of acting as Israeli informants or collaborators. During the
period of Operation Protective Edge, Hamas and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza committed
war crimes by firing thousands of indiscriminate rockets and other projectiles into southern
Israel, which Amnesty International has reported on elsewhere.3
The agreement between the Palestinian political factions, mainly Fatah and Hamas, leading
to the formation of the June 2014 national consensus government failed to address the
fact that both Fatah and Hamas operate their own security apparatuses and criminal justice
systems. Within Gaza, the administration of criminal justice was left under the Ministry of
Interior of the Hamas de facto administration, meaning that the law enforcement and justice
system developed by Hamas following its seizure of power in Gaza in 2007 remains in place.
Gazas police and other security forces, prisons administration, and judiciary are composed
almost entirely of Hamas members and supporters and those closely linked to the al-Qassam
Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.
20 May 2015). 2 Amnesty International, Evidence of medical workers and facilities being targeted by Israeli forces in
Gaza (Index: MDE 15/023/2014), http://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/gaza-new-evidence-
deliberate-attacks-medics-israeli-army (last accessed 20 May 2015); Amnesty International, Families
Under the Rubble: Israeli attacks on inhabited homes (Index: MDE 15/032/2014),
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/032/2014/en/ (last accessed 20 May 2015); Amnesty
International, Nothing is Immune: Israels destruction of landmark buildings in Gaza (Index: MDE
15/0029/2014), https://www.amnesty.org/articles/news/2014/12/israels-destruction-multistorey-
buildings-extensive-wanton-and-unjustified/ (last accessed 20 May 2015). 3 See Amnesty Internationals report, Unlawful and deadly: Rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian
armed groups during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict (Index: MDE 21/1178/2015),
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde21/1178/2015/en/ (last accessed 20 May 2015).
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GAZAS CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM UNDER HAMAS The Hamas de facto Ministry of Interior commands a security force of more than 12,000, a
number that includes: the National Security Force, Civil Police, Security and Protection
Apparatus, and the Internal Security force.4 The Ministry also controls the Department of
Reform and Rehabilitation, which administers prisons in Gaza, including Abu Obaida Ibn
Jarrah Prison in Beit Lahiya and Katiba Prison and Ansar Prison in Gaza City, which, along
with the newly constructed prison in Rafah, were bombed by Israel during the recent
conflict.5 There are 20 police stations across the Gaza Strip, some with capacity to hold
detainees; during the recent conflict, at least two police stations, al-Tuffah and Jabalia, were
bombed by Israel.6 Internal Security runs seven detention centres across the Strip, three of
which are in Gaza City, including its main detention and interrogation centre, commonly
known as Qasr al-Hakem, which was also bombed in the hostilities. The Ministry of Interiors
Inspector General oversees all security forces and their office includes a human rights unit
whose function is to receive complaints about abuse. In addition, the Ministry of Interior
reportedly facilitates complaint mechanisms allowing citizens to lodge complaints about civil
matters or abuse, including human rights violations.
The justice system in Gaza has been in place since 2007 and includes Sharia,
administrative, civil, criminal, and military courts. Military courts hear cases involving
members of the security forces, members of other Palestinian factions and their military
wings, as well as persons suspected of collaboration with Israel, who are subject to
prosecution under the PLO Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979. This code was developed by
PLO structures in exile prior to the establishment of the PA, remains in force, and forms the
basis of the military justice system. Palestinian human rights groups in Gaza have refused to
represent detainees before the military courts, which they consider illegitimate.
During an Amnesty International visit to Gaza in June and July 2012 delegates met with
various officials at the Ministry of Interior, including the deputy commander of Internal
Security, and conducted inspection visits to prisons and detention centres. In response to
concerns Amnesty International raised regarding the treatment of prisoners and detainees,
Hamas officials said that their forces were not properly trained and required international
assistance to develop the security and criminal justice system to adhere to international
standards, but that they were not able to get this training due to the Israeli blockade. The
blockade has impeded the development of the civil institutions in Gaza since 2007,
including the non-governmental sector. Moreover, official civil and judiciary institutions have
been targeted by Israel during the military offensives against Gaza conducted since 2008.
This has included the bombing of buildings that host such institutions.
4 Yezid Sayigh, Policing the People, Building the State: Authoritarian Transformation in the West Bank
and Gaza, The Carnegie Papers, 2011, p. 6
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/gaza_west_bank_security.pdf (last accessed 20 May 2015). 5 al-Watan Voice, Heavy bombardment of the headquarters of internal security and the new prison in
Rafah, injuries in Beit Lahia, 186 martyrs, 14 July 2014,
http://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2014/07/14/567415.html (in Arabic, accessed 20 May
2015). 6 Deutsche Welle, Military operations resume in Gaza after truce, 4 August 2014, http://bit.ly/1JSVysi
(in Arabic, accessed 20 May 2015).
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Amnesty International is concerned that the bodies and mechanisms set up by the Hamas de
facto administration to carry out law enforcement and the administration of justice lack the
necessary skills, independence, oversight, and accountability to ensure that the rule of law is
respected for both victims and accused; to protect individuals from human rights abuses
against them; to ensure that victims have access to effective mechanisms to obtain redress;
and that accused persons are afforded due process. On the contrary, it seems clear that
perpetrators of human rights abuses continue to enjoy impunity, and that the Hamas de facto
administration lacks the political will to hold perpetrators of such crimes to account,
particularly Hamas members, and to respect fundamental human rights, including the rights
to life and to be free from torture.
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ABDUCTIONS, TORTURE AND UNLAWFUL KILLINGS OF ALLEGED COLLABORATORS Media reports of summary killings in Gaza of alleged collaborators with Israel began
circulating in the first few days of Operation Protective Edge.7 According to these reports,
which Amnesty International has not been able to verify, Hamas forces captured an
unspecified number of local people who were acting as informants for or otherwise assisting
Israeli forces, who they dealt with in the field. Hamas forces were reported to have shot
one suspected collaborator on 13 July in front of witnesses in a street in Rafah;
subsequent media reports said Hamas forces executed four captured collaborators on 13
July; and nine others were reportedly executed in Shujaiya after Israeli troops began a
ground offensive in Gaza on 24 July. By 1 August, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported,
Hamas forces had executed at least 26 collaborators since the beginning of Operation
7 Palestinian news reported the capture of collaborators during the first few days of the conflict.
Palestine Times, The resistance arrests a number of collaborators, 7 July 2014,
http://tinyurl.com/oavykjh (in Arabic, accessed 20 May 2015); Al Watan Voice, Security website: The
resistance arrested collaborators in Gaza, 9 July 2014,
http://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2014/07/09/564309.html (in Arabic, accessed 20 May
2015); Middle East Monitor, Collaborators captured in Gaza, 8 July 2014,
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/12626-collaborators-captured-in-gaza (accessed
20 May 2015). The first reports said that Hamas forces captured collaborators while they were carrying
out orders from the Israeli intelligence services but did not specify their number or the location where
they were captured. The reports cited a security source who said that one of the collaborators confessed
to monitoring farmland and reporting on activities there, while another said he helped locate houses of
political and military leaders. Reports said that Hamas forces dealt with the collaborators in the field
without specifying where they were held or if any of them were executed. Ajnad News, The resistance
arrested 4 collaborators and dealt with them in the field, 12 July 2014, http://www.ajnad-
news.com/site/ajnad/details.aspx?itemid=18814 (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). On 17 July,
news sources reported that Hamas forces executed four collaborators it had captured during the war. Al
Quds, From the war in Gaza: The death of Four Collaborators and the arrest of 13 others, 17 July
2014, http://www.alquds.com/news/article/view/id/514752 (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). On
24 July 2014, and following Israels ground invasion of Gaza, news sources reported that Hamas forces
executed a further nine collaborators in Shujaiya and shot others in the legs and put them under house
arrest. According to the reports, the alleged collaborators were executed after it was proved they were
involved in the killing of Palestinian fighters. Al Quds, Gaza: Collaborators send signals to jets and the
resistance continues to execute them, 24 July 2014,
http://www.alquds.com/news/article/view/id/515987 (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015).
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Protective Edge, with all of the victims executed in the field, without trial, following which at
least nine of their bodies had been dumped in the streets for public view.8
The first extrajudicial executions by Hamas forces that Amnesty International has been able
to confirm were carried out on 5 August when five men were shot dead by firing squad
outside Katiba Prison. All five, whose ages ranged from 41 to 63, were removed from the
prison, where they were held as inmates, immediately before their execution by or with the
apparent acquiescence of prison officials. Hamas military courts had sentenced all five men,
whose identities are known to Amnesty International, to death in separate trials in May, June,
and August 2013 after convicting them on charges of collaboration with Israel, but in all
cases they were still awaiting the outcome of appeals against their death sentences. After
their executions, an ambulance took the five mens bodies to al-Shifa hospital where their
families were able to retrieve them.
The same day, local media reported that, according to an unnamed Hamas security source,
Palestinian resistance fighters had executed in the battlefield a number of collaborators
who helped the enemy identify new targets. The unnamed Hamas source reportedly said
that the executions were carried out after completing the revolutionary procedures during
the battle and that those executed as collaborators had been caught red-handed informing
about the resistance and homes of civilians in various areas of the Gaza Strip and were
attempting to disturb the resistance forces and setting traps for the Zionist army. He also
reportedly told the media:
The resistance will continue to repel collaborators and cut their numbers in Gaza.
The resistance will not grant mercy to anyone who provides information about the
resistance and its men to the enemy. Field executions will be the number one
solution for them.9
Amnesty International has not been able to verify these reported executions or ascertain their
number, and Hamas has revealed no details of them.
8 Asharq al-Awsat, Hamas intensifies its war on collaborators, 1 August 2014,
http://aawsat.com/home/article/150226 (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). 9 Middle East Monitor, Gaza executes collaborators, 5 August 2014,
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/13239-gaza-executes-collaborators (last accessed
20 May 2015); Maan, The resistance has executed a number of collaborators during the war, 6
August 2014, http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=718527 (in Arabic, last accessed 20
May 2015); al-Watan Voice, Field executions: The resistance executes a number of collaborators in
Gaza, 5 August 2014, http://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2014/08/05/574796.html (in Arabic,
last accessed 20 May 2015); Naba News Agency, Field executions: The resistance executes a number
of collaborators in Gaza, 6 August 2014, http://www.naba.ps/arabic/?Action=Details&ID=60589 (in
Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015); Raia al Yom, The resistance in Gaza executed a number of
collaborators with Israel, August 5 2014, http://www.raialyoum.com/?p=132001 (in Arabic, last
accessed 20 May 2015); Al Arabiya, Gaza: Hamas executed collaborators with Israel during battles,
6 August 2014, http://bit.ly/1S0zTUt (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015).
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AYMAN TAHA On 7 August 2014 the Palestinian al-Quds newspaper reported that the body of Ayman Taha,
allegedly detained by the al-Qassam Brigades since 23 January 2014, was delivered to al-
Shifa hospital. According to the report, Ayman Taha was killed on 4 August, three days
earlier, when his body was brought to al-Shifa hospital and left at its entrance, only to be
picked up by armed men one hour later. The report said the body showed bullet wounds to
the head and chest and that Hamas prevented the news being published at the time and only
allowed disclosure on 7 August when the body was returned to the hospital again.
Ayman Taha, whose father was one of the founders of Hamas, had acted as its representative
to Egypts intelligence authorities prior to his disappearance on 23 January 2014, allegedly
detained by the al-Qassam Brigades. On 22 February, Hamas said it was holding him on
charges of misconduct, corruption and profiteering. Amnesty International is not aware of any
formal charges brought against Ayman Taha.
On 7 August, Hamas said he had died from injuries he sustained when an Israeli air strike
targeted a Gaza City apartment in which he and others were present.
While such reports of unlawful killings during the first days of the conflict remain unverified,
what is certain is that Hamas forces carried out at least 17 summary, extrajudicial executions
of alleged collaborators on 22 August 2014, the day after Israeli air strikes killed three
Hamas military commanders Mohamed Abo Shamaleh, Raed al-Attar, and Mohamed
Barhoum. In Rafah around 10.30am on 22 August, armed men acting on behalf of the Gazan
Ministry of Interior removed 11 inmates from Katiba Prison with the apparent acquiescence
of the prison authorities, and executed them by firing squad in the grounds of al-Jawazat
police station, close to al-Azhar University in Gaza City, which had previously been damaged
by Israeli bombing and abandoned.10 Eight of those shot all men had been imprisoned as
alleged collaborators and charged with collaboration under the PLO Revolutionary Penal
Code of 1979 but were executed before their cases had completed the judicial process. Eight
had ongoing military trials, two were sentenced to prison pending appeals, and one man had
been sentenced to death also pending appeal.
Those executed included Atta Najjar, 45, a former police officer under the PA. He was
serving a 15-year prison term imposed by a Hamas court after he was arrested on 30 August
2009 and subsequently convicted of collaborating with Israel. He had been charged under
the PLO Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979 with communicating with hostile sides.11 He
reportedly suffered from a mental disability and other health problems, and was subjected to
sleep deprivation as well as other forms of torture or other ill-treatment while held at the
main Internal Security detention facility in Gaza City.
10 Felesteen, 11 collaborators with the occupation executed in Gaza, 22 August 2014,
http://bit.ly/1desBge (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). 11 This is a charge under Article 131 of the PLO Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979:
http://www.dft.gov.ps/index.php?option=com_dataentry&pid=12&leg_id=%2094 (in Arabic).
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Attas brother told Amnesty International:
We were surprised when they called to say come and collect his body from the
Katiba Square on the Friday. It was a friend who called us, nobody official informed
us of his death, nor anyone from the prison. He said, Your brother has been killed
and he is thrown in the Katiba Square. He was killed at about 8am or 9am and
moved to al-Shifa hospital mortuary by an ambulance an hour later. I went to the
mortuary and found they had cut off the electricity to the fridge. This was an act of
oppression and aggression. Why do you want to torment him in his death? It is a
sign that this was the act of a gang rather than an official body.
I found the body and on it a paper written with his name form number one field
execution Jabalia resident and the identity card number.
There were marks of torture and bullet wounds on his body. His arms and legs were
broken. And his body was as if youd put it in a bag and smashed it. His bones were
broken. His body was riddled with about 30 bullets. He had slaughter marks around
his neck, marks of knives. And from behind the head there was no brain. Empty.
His arms were broken. It was difficult for us to carry him. We needed six people to
carry him. He was heavy, like when you put meat in a bag; no bones. His bones were
smashed. They broke him in the prison.
They killed someone who was not a danger to them. Hed almost finished his
sentence. Hed worn himself out for three years going to courts, and being tortured.
Adli Waheb Arif al-Wadiya, 38, was serving a sentence of life imprisonment imposed on 6
February 2014 by a Hamas military court that convicted him of seeking and collaborating
with [the] enemy under Articles 133 and 141 of the 1979 PLO Revolutionary Penal Code.
During his trial, according to military court records reviewed by Amnesty International, Adli
al-Wadiya alleged that Internal Security officers had tortured or otherwise ill-treated him in
pre-trial detention to make him confess to the accusations against him. The court failed to
investigate his allegations and accepted his torture-tainted confession as evidence of his
guilt. His father, Waheb Arif Hamad al-Wadiya, also told Amnesty International that Internal
Security officers had tortured Adli al-Wadiya in pre-trial detention. Following his execution,
his family went to the morgue at al-Shifa hospital to collect his body; they told Amnesty
International that they found it riddled with bullet holes.
Ibrahim Dabour, 28, an insurance company employee and father of two children, was
detained by Internal Security officers on 4 November 2010 near the Abu Sharkh roundabout
in Jabalia, and they then searched his house. Ibrahim Dabour then disappeared for seven
months before members of his family were allowed to visit him at the Internal Security forces
main detention facility in Gaza City. He told them that he had been tortured and had required
treatment at al-Shifa hospital during his detention. He was moved to Katiba Prison in June
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2012 and was still standing trial before a military court on a charge of communicating with
hostile sides at the time of his execution.12
Ibrahim Dabours brother told Amnesty International:
We were told by people around us at 1pm. There was no official notification. He was
executed at 9.30am on Friday. My brother received a text message at 10.31pm that
night saying, The judgement against Ibrahim al-Dabour has been carried out
according to the Sharia as per the ruling of the Revolutionary Court. Our
condolences are your solace and your sorrow is our sorrow. Go to the al-Shifa
hospital for his body. Signed, Palestinian Resistance.
By then we had already taken Ibrahims body and buried him. Later, the lawyer and
other reliable sources at the prison told us that on that day, at 9.30am 11 men were
taken from the prison and executed at 10.30am.
Ibrahims wife had high hopes for his release. She had arranged many things for him
at home based on that hope. She thought he was delayed because of the war, and
once it was over, he would come home. Lawlessness prevails in Gaza.
During the four years that Ibrahim was in prison, no decisions were taken against
him. Even if he had been sentenced to death, there would have been an appeals
process and other alternatives. What they have done is nothing to do with justice,
its just criminal. These are the actions of militias. I question their patriotism.
The masked gunmen just shot them and left, hoping that people would stone them.
It was horrible, the way these matters are dealt with, its barbaric to execute people
in public, and they have wives and children. The military courts are just a sham, a
game. The 11 men were executed one day after three leaders were targeted in
Rafah. Why were the 11 not executed at the beginning of the war? The only
explanation is that it was just revenge and conflict between the media, security, and
military at the expense of innocent people.
All the Gaza residents thought that the executed men were arrested during the field
battles, so they were happy. When they found out that they had been sitting in
prison all along, some for four years, the attitude on the street changed.
F.A., a 23-year-old resident of Jabalia, was awaiting the outcome of an appeal to the Military
High Court at the time of his execution. Following his arrest by Internal Security officers in
January 2011, the Central Military Court in Gaza City sentenced him to death on 24 March
2013 after convicting him of collaboration with an enemy entity. According to his lawyer,
F.A. wept and had bruising on his face when he stood trial and told the court that he had
been tortured in detention by officers who hung him by his wrists and ankles and beat him;
12 This is a charge under Article 131 of the PLO Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979:
http://www.dft.gov.ps/index.php?option=com_dataentry&pid=12&leg_id=%2094 (in Arabic).
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The body of Abd as-Salam Jillo
in the morgue, with what
appear to be exit wounds on
his chest. Private
however, the court does not appear to have ordered an investigation into his torture
allegations.13
Abd as-Salam Jillo, 30, a construction company employee and father of two children, was
still standing trial on a charge of communicating with hostile sides at the time of his
execution.14 Internal Security officers arrested him on 1 April 2013 near his home in Jabalia
and took him to their main detention facility in Gaza City. There, according to his family,
officers tortured or otherwise ill-treated him, including by beating him, pouring cold water on
him in winter and depriving him of sleep. He was moved to Katiba Prison in June 2013 and
last seen alive there by his family on 24 June 2014. According to the death certificate issued
to his family following his execution, he died from bullet wounds to his neck and chest.
A.J., 34, a former member of the PAs Preventative
Security Force, was also still on trial at the time of
his execution on 22 August 2014. Internal
Security officers arrested him at his home in al-
Thwam, Beit Lahiya, on 23 October 2013 and took
him to their main detention facility in Gaza City.
There they held him incommunicado for 10 weeks
and subjected him to shabah (being forced into
prolonged stress positions) and other forms of
torture, according to his family. Internal Security
officers also searched the familys home several
times. Hamas authorities charged A.J. with
communicating with hostile sides but he had not
been convicted.15 A.J.s father said he visited him
in Katiba Prison on 21 August 2014, the day
before his execution. A.J.s brother, who collected
his body from al-Shifa hospitals morgue, told
Amnesty International:
When I tried to open the bag to inspect his body, I
was not allowed to and told to take it away for
burial. When we got home, I removed the bag in
preparation for his bathing and I found the
following: the chest area was all torn apart by
several bullet holes it looked like bullets had
exploded, with some of the skin coming out of his
body. I started looking at other parts of his body
13 Amnesty International had previously identified F.A. as being at risk of execution. See Urgent Actions:
1053/12 (Index: MDE 21/002/2013); 214/13 (Index: MDE 21/003/2013); and 214/13 (Further
Information) (Index: MDE 21/007/2013). 14 This is a charge under Article 131 of the PLO Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979:
http://www.dft.gov.ps/index.php?option=com_dataentry&pid=12&leg_id=%2094 (in Arabic). 15 This is a charge under Article 131 of the PLO Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979:
http://www.dft.gov.ps/index.php?option=com_dataentry&pid=12&leg_id=%2094 (in Arabic).
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and found under his arm, towards his waist on the left side of his body from the
back, the location of where the bullets entered the body. When I counted them, I
managed to count to 32 bullets and could not bear to see or count any more, I was
overwhelmed.
On the morning of 22 August, Hamas said in a statement that it had established
revolutionary courts and sentenced an undisclosed number of collaborators to death.
Masked men read out the statement at the al-Omari mosque during Friday prayers, following
which other masked armed men publicly executed six men outside the mosque in front of
hundreds of spectators.16 According to witnesses interviewed by Amnesty International, as
worshippers were leaving the mosque at around 1.30pm, between 15 and 20 armed men
dressed in black and wearing masks suddenly appeared amid the crowd dragging six men
whose heads were covered with hoods. The men were made to kneel near a wall close to the
mosque facing the crowd. One of the armed men then used a pistol to shoot one bullet into
the head of each man, before spraying their corpses with fire from an AK-47 automatic rifle
that he reloaded several times. The armed men then hung papers signed Palestinian
Resistance on the wall above where each of the men were shot, which identified each of the
victims only by their initials and read:
The traitor [initials of each of the victims provided]; most important clauses for
convictions: provided information to the enemy about the locations of guards,
tunnels, explosive devices, and homes of fighters, rockets which the occupation
bombed and which resulted in many martyrs from resistance fighters. Based on this
the revolutionary justice has been implemented.
The armed men left the six mens bodies on the ground where they were shot. An ambulance
arrived shortly after and some of the armed men helped medics load the bodies into the
16 A number of pieces of evidence circulated in the aftermath of this event. A video of the reading of the
sentence in the mosque was posted on YouTube: Medo Nassar, The revolutionary court of the
Palestinian Resistance sentences a number of collaborators to death, 22 August 2014,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVHR0jQ1-WM (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). The text of
the statement was published on an online forum: Statement of the revolutionary courts imposition of
the death penalty on a number of collaborators, 23 August 2014;
https://www.paldf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1154290 (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). A
picture of the statement also circulated: Slab News, The revolutionary court of the resistance issues an
execution order against collaborators in Gaza, 22 August 2014, http://slabnews.com/article/107180/ (in
Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). A video of the aftermath of the executions was posted on YouTube:
Muslim Palestine, Witness the execution of collaborators in Gaza, 23 August 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKB3MM8TVrY (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). A set of
pictures also appeared: Al Safer News, New pictures of the execution of 7 collaborators in Gaza, 23
August 2014, http://bit.ly/1GjhVbk (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015); and the Palestinian
Information Center, Scenes of the execution of collaborators with the occupation in Gaza, 22 August
2014 https://www.palinfo.com/site/pic/newsdetails.aspx?itemid=160961 (in Arabic, last accessed 20
May 2015). See also al Ankabout, Strangling Necks extends to 18 collaborators in Gaza, 23 August
2014, http://www.alankabout.com/arabic_international_news/middle_east_news/62875.html (in Arabic,
last accessed 20 May 2015).
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ambulance which then took the bodies to the morgue of al-Shifa hospital, from where their
families collected them.
Amnesty International has not been able to verify the identities of these six victims of
extrajudicial execution but they almost certainly included Saleh Swelim, 32, who Internal
Security officers detained at his home at around 8pm on 11 August 2014. The officers took
Saleh Swelim to their Jabalia detention facility, known as the al-Sisi centre, and then to the
outpatients clinic at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, which Hamas forces were using to detain
and interrogate suspects. M.S., a younger brother of Saleh Swelim, told Amnesty
International that Internal Security officers also detained him that day and that he saw Saleh
Swelim both at the al-Sisi facility and at al-Shifa hospital, and that Internal Security officers
tortured both of them. He said:
At the end of Ramadan and during the
war I was served with a house arrest
order. But we live in Izbet Beit Hanoun,
an area considered to be dangerous since
it is a border town. So we left for my
uncles home in Gaza City.
While I was there Internal Security came
to the house and knocked loudly at the
door; a relative told them no one was
home and the family was in Gaza City at
their brothers home. I went downstairs to
see what was happening and two men
took me into a Mitsubishi car. They said
they were from Internal Security and I
was wanted for questioning.
I sat in the back seat between two of
them. They put a blindfold on me and a
pistol to my head and told me not to
raise my head. I dont know where they
took me; it seemed far away and they
kept going around in circles with the car.
They asked if I knew why I had been
taken. When I said I did not, they said,
Now you will find out, and started
beating me.
I was taken down steps to what seemed like a ground floor, where I was beaten for
about half an hour while my hands were tied with rope. Someone else came and
said I was to be brought upstairs, so I was taken to either the second or third floor,
as we went up steps.
Upstairs, I was hung by the legs and handcuffed and beaten. Finally, someone said,
He does not want to confess, hang him up. They hung my legs from the ceiling
A photo of M.S. displaying what he told
Amnesty International were the burns caused
by acid poured on him during torture.
Amnesty International
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while I was handcuffed, then beaten with metal bars and pipes. I was accused of
using and dealing the drug Tramal [a painkiller], and also of using and dealing in
hashish and procuring women. I would not confess to any of the charges.
Later I was told they had no interest in those charges. They said, We took you
because of your brother in the West Bank intelligence service; we know you are in
contact with him.
I told them I was not in contact with my brother [E.S.]. During the torture sessions
they kept insisting that I was relaying messages to intelligence services through
Saleh and wanted me to admit what Saleh used to report back to me. I denied
reporting anything to Saleh or him reporting anything back to me.
The beatings continued and they put gas pipes in my mouth then and poured acid
on my hands. I could not bear the pain. From then on I agreed to everything they
wanted me to confess to. I think they were recording me; they kept saying, Say this
and say that.
Every now and then they would stop. They made me confess to communicating with
Saleh, who would contact [E.S.] to find out the movements of Hamas and the
location of the rockets. They wanted me to confess that I followed specific people
for Saleh who would in turn report back to [E.S.]. They also had me confess that
[E.S.] sent us money. I had to tell them all the places where I worked.
That night I was put in a bus and taken to al-Sisi centre where they lifted the
blindfold from my face; it had been on there all night. I was beaten when we arrived
at the camp. I was told that my brother Saleh was there.
I was beaten all night to make me confront my brother with the names of the men
mentioned earlier. I refused, then I could not stand the beatings any more and I
went in to face Saleh. I saw he was beaten and when I got to him he was being
beaten with boots and leather straps.
We were both made to confess by being beaten. We remained in the al-Sisi camp
until the following day then were transferred to the al-Shifa hospital. We were
received respectfully there in the outpatients clinic. They did not beat us and
treated us with respect, especially after they saw the burns on my body and the
marks from the beatings. They applied ointment to my wounds and gave me medical
treatment.
M.S. was released but it seems certain that Saleh Swelim was one of the six men summarily
killed outside the al-Omari mosque on 22 August. His family identified him from photographs
of the executions by the clothes he was wearing, and they collected his body from the morgue
that day.
Three other families told Amnesty International that on 22 August they collected the corpses
of relatives whom Hamas forces had detained on suspicion of collaboration with Israel. A
man who disappeared after Hamas forces abducted him on 11 July 2014 from Rafah may
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The body of Sabir al-Zain in the morgue, with what appear to
be multiple entry wounds on his chest. Private
also have been among those executed; his family told Amnesty International that they had
been issued with an official death certificate by the Hamas authorities stating that their
relative died on 22 August 2014 as a result of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, but
that they had not received his body.
Sabir al-Zain, 56, a father of 11 children, was taken away by four armed men who raided his
home in Jabalia at around 5.30am on 17 August 2014, his wife told Amnesty International,
adding that she
recognized one of the
men. She said the four
men forced their way
into the house,
searched it and then
took her husband away
in a white Hyundai
saloon car. She tried to
find out his
whereabouts for two
days before she learned
that Sabir al-Zain was
detained by Internal
Security officers at al-
Shifa hospital. She
then began receiving
threatening phone calls
from callers who did
not identify themselves
warning her and other
family members not to
seek access to her
husband. On 22 August, five days after he was taken away by armed men, Sabir al-Zains
family received a phone call telling them that his body was at the morgue of al-Shifa hospital
and they could collect it from there. One of the dead mans sons told Amnesty International:
My father had been tortured beyond belief. It was horrible. His arms were both
broken. They had burnt him on a stove. His body was broken. I inspected his body
myself. I was the only one capable of seeing the sight of his body. I was the only one
that went in and saw the body. There was a paper printed with all the names [of the
dead], except for my fathers name, which was handwritten with a dry ballpoint pen
at the end like an afterthought.
Iyad Eid was detained outside his brothers shop in Jabalia on 20 August 2014 by two armed
men who drove him away in a white Hyundai car, according to his brother. The brother told
Amnesty International that when he went to ask for Iyad Eid at the Jabalia police station,
which Internal Security officers were using to hold and interrogate suspects, he saw the same
car there and the two men who had taken him, but they denied that Iyad Eid was held at
Jabalia police station. On 22 August 2014, the family received information that Iyad Eid had
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been executed and that they could retrieve his body from the morgue at al-Shifa hospital for
burial. His brother described the appearance of Iyad Eids body:
[The] shoulders were dark blue and his underarms were extremely loose. His two
front teeth were broken while an old cut on his lip was reopened. He had marks on
his cheek from pipes and it was all blue. His spine was covered with dark bruises
plus it looked like he had been hit with a stick on the back of his head; it was
swollen and looked like the bump had clogged blood. During the trip in the jeep to
the funeral, I was holding his head; I turned it and felt and saw the bruise.
Ali Daalsa, 32, an electrician with three children, was taken from al-Shati refugee camp on
20 August 2014. His cousin, M.D., who was present, told Amnesty International that two of
the men who took Ali Daalsa away identified themselves as police officers. A third man,
whom Ali Daalsa and M.D. knew to be an Internal Security officer, was also present. The
three men took both Ali Daalsa and M.D. away in a black Hyundai car but after about 10
minutes, during which they assaulted him, the three let M.D. go, dropping him near al-Quds
Open University. The next day, M.D. went to the part of al-Shifa hospital used by Internal
Security to inquire about Ali Daalsa. He told Amnesty International:
I went to al-Shifa hospital outpatients clinic where the Internal Security had a
room. I knocked on the door and nobody answered. I kept on knocking on the door
until they [Internal Security] finally arrived.
They grabbed me and hit me and insulted me and treated me harshly, and increased
their beatings of me. They put me in a room and left me until about 1am when they
returned and asked me, Do you want to leave? I said, No, I dont want to leave.
So at about 2am they came and asked me what I wanted. I said, I either stay here
with my brother or I leave with my brother. They said, Come, well show you your
brother.
They showed me my brother from behind. I couldnt tell if he was alive or dead.
There were about three other people sitting on the floor; they were detainees.
M.D. said that Internal Security officers then took him by car to the al-Muaskir area and let
him go. However, he returned to al-Shifa hospital the next day, when Internal Security
officers told him that Ali Daalsa had been executed after confessing to collaboration with
Israel. When the family went to collect Ali Daalsas body from the hospital morgue, M.D. said
he saw other bodies of execution victims there:
I went to the mortuary and they said he was there but they didnt tell me in which
fridge. So I opened every one and found some agents [alleged collaborators] with
large posters stuck on their shoulders about what they did. I found my brother in the
last one. I found a small paper with only his name written on it: Ali Daalsa, Shati
[refugee camp]. No official stamp. I took the paper and put it in my pocket. And
pulled out the drawer from the fridge and began to inspect it. I found in the right
jaw a mark like that of pliers; at first I thought it was a bullet, so I put my fingers in
and hit bone. Also on his forehead, from his right eye across his face was the mark
of a Kalashnikov. His lips were extremely blue. You could see the marks of torture.
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The death certificate for S.B. that was delivered to
his family, despite them never having received a
body. His whereabouts are still unknown. Private
His right eye was swollen. I lifted
his clothes and saw on his left side
a gunshot wound but it was not
bleeding. Which means that he
was shot when he was dead. No
blood.
Ali Daalsas cousin also saw the
corpse in the morgue. He told
Amnesty International:
When we opened the fridge, first
we checked his body before
burying him. There was only one
bullet hole on his body, below his
stomach to the left. Gunshot
wound. Other than that, only
evidence of torture was on his
face. No execution.
S.B., 32, was abducted from his
family home in eastern Rafah on
11 July 2014. His family have not
seen him since. S.B.s mother,
who witnessed the abduction, told
Amnesty International that S.B.
was drinking juice on the doorstep
at about 10.30pm when a number
of men drove up in a white car and
forced S.B. to go with them.17 She said the family were too afraid to report S.B.s abduction
to the police. On 22 August, a man gave S.B.s wife a death certificate for her husband,
which Amnesty International has since reviewed. It states that S.B. died on 22 August from
bullet wounds to his chest and that his corpse was handed over to his brother, M.B.; he,
however, denies receiving it and the certificate gives an incorrect ID number for him.
Unofficial sources in Rafah told Amnesty International that they believe that S.B. was killed
by members of the al-Qassam Brigades, including one of S.B.s relatives, and buried in the
vicinity of Khan Yunis. The Hamas authorities in Gaza have taken no steps to investigate
S.B.s abduction and possible murder or hold those responsible to account, according to the
family.
Hamas dubbed the 22 August killings Operation Strangling Necks and said it targeted
collaborators with Israel who had provided information that had assisted Israeli forces to
launch attacks on Palestinian homes, schools, and other places that had caused the loss of
17 Miriam Hamdan Hassan al-Bahabsa, interviewed on 19 November 2014 at her house in al-Salam
neighbourhood, Rafah.
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many civilian lives and livelihoods.18 Hamas-affiliated media sources, citing unnamed Hamas
security sources, claimed that the Palestinian resistance had established revolutionary
procedures to deal with collaborators in the field, but did not describe these in any detail
or explain what safeguards, if any, they included to prevent the execution of anyone wrongly
accused. Hamas-affiliated media simply claimed that all those executed as collaborators
whose number they did not disclose had been caught in the act of assisting Israels military
operations by: monitoring and reporting on the movements of Palestinian commanders and
fighters, enabling them to be targeted and killed by Israel; locating the sites of Palestinian
rocket launchers and tunnels, and providing that information to Israel; providing Israel with
details of houses used by Palestinian fighters that Israeli forces then bombed; and spreading
rumours on behalf of Israel. In addition, Hamas-affiliated media alleged that executed
collaborators had been found installing spy equipment, photographing vehicles, and
providing information and relevant GPS coordinates to Israeli forces, and that some of them
had received money and distributed it to other collaborators using dead-drop locations.
Hamas political and military leaders sought to justify the extrajudicial executions carried out
by Hamas forces during Operation Protective Edge on the grounds that they allegedly targeted
collaborators; although some criticized the public nature of the executions. On 23 August,
Musa Abu Marzouq, the deputy chief of Hamass Political Bureau, claimed in an interview
that Palestinians who had collaborated with Israel were the principal reason why Israeli forces
had bombed UN schools, mosques, and university facilities and killed so many civilians
during Operation Protective Edge. He also claimed that most executions were of alleged
collaborators who had been detained before Operation Protective Edge began, so apparently
contradicting the assertions in Hamas-affiliated media that those executed had been
collaborators caught in the act of assisting Israel during Operation Protective Edge. He
claimed too that most of the executed collaborators had already been sentenced to death,
despite the evidence to the contrary. He also claimed that all of those executed had been
tried in hearings that had been recorded although none of these recordings have been made
publicly available by Hamas authorities to date and that all of those executed were
responsible for murder. He further claimed that the executions had been carried out to satisfy
public demands that collaborators should be killed.19
On 28 August, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas publicly criticized the executions by
Hamas in Gaza, describing them as a crime that Hamas had carried out alone and without
consulting others.20
18 al-Majd, The resistance announces the Strangling Necks campaign for dealing with suspects and
collaborators, http://www.almajd.ps/?ac=showdetail&did=5898&_sm_au_=i5VF46VnSQK0r5V7 (in
Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). 19 Dream TV, Full interview with Abu Marzouq, minute 41, 1 October 2014,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRL7KxY6TBc (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). Al Jazeera,
Hamas open the door to any course for the meeting of Palestinian demands, 23 August 2014,
http://bit.ly/1FtFW0n (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015). 20 BBC Arabic, Abbas: It was possible to avoid the victims of Gaza, 30 August 2014,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arabic/middleeast/2014/08/140830_palestine_abbas_criticises_hamas (in Arabic,
last accessed 20 May 2015); Palestine Today, Abbas: Gazas shadow government threatens the
Strangling Necks
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Palestinian human rights groups have also criticized Hamass forces extrajudicial executions
of alleged collaborators as a flagrant violation of the right to fair trial, insisting that while
collaborators should be held accountable this should be achieved in accordance with
international law and human rights standards. They have also expressed concern over
allegations that Hamas forces used torture and other ill-treatment to extract confessions
from detainees who were subsequently convicted of collaboration with Israel, further
undermining their rights to fair trial and their right to be protected against torture or other ill-
treatment.21
Palestinian human rights groups have also accused Israel, as the occupying power, of
responsibility for putting the lives of Palestinians at risk by recruiting them, mostly through
blackmail, as informers.
continuation of reconciliation and unity, 28 August 2014, http://bit.ly/1HcpdK7 (in Arabic, last
accessed 20 May 2015). 21 The Independent Commission for Human Rights, ICHR calls for an immediate halt of extra-judicial
executions in the Gaza strip, 22 August 2014, http://www.ichr.ps/en/2/4/1254/ICHR-Calls-for-an-
Immediate-Halt-of-Extra-Judicial-Executions-in-the-Gaza-Strip-ICHR-Calls-for-an-Immediate-Halt-of-
Extra-Judicial-Executions-in-the-Gaza-Strip.htm#.VHYhLYusVps (last accessed 20 May 2015);
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, PCHR calls for stopping extra-judicial executions in Gaza, 22
August 2014,
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10604:pchr-calls-for-
stopping-extra-judicial-executions-in-gaza&catid=36:pchrpressreleases&Itemid=194 (last accessed 20
May 2015).
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OTHER KILLINGS DURING THE PERIOD During the period of Operation Protective Edge, at least one man and one woman were killed
in circumstances that remain unclear. Hamas authorities must investigate these killings.
Al-Zein Mohammed Abu Jebah, 40, was shot by a member of a Hamas security force in Gaza
City on 22 July 2014 in what appears to have been a revenge attack, part of a feud between
the victim and a member of Hamas. Al-Zein Mohammed Abu Jebah was visiting his home,
which he and his family had fled five days earlier due to heavy Israeli bombing. On his way
back to his place of refuge in al-Zaytoun he reportedly entered into an argument with a
member of a Hamas security force manning a checkpoint, who then shot him with a hand
gun. He was taken to hospital where he died soon after. According to the hospital medical
report, of which Amnesty International has obtained a copy, al-Zein Mohammed Abu Jebah
died from severe bleeding as a result of a gunshot wound to the lower right abdomen. Alayan
Mohammed Abu Jebah, his brother, told Amnesty International that upon submitting a
complaint to the General Prosecutor in Gaza the police detained a suspect. Amnesty
International is not aware of any subsequent prosecution or conviction.
According to sources in Gaza, members of a Palestinian armed group summarily executed
Karima Hammad, but no further details are available. Karima Hammad is a relative of the
Hamas Minister of Interior Fathi Hammad. Her Husband, Iyad Madhoun, was summarily
killed in December 2013. She was previously held by the PAs Preventative Security for her
involvement in the assassination of Hamas military leader Yahya Ayyash in Gaza in 1996 and
subjected to torture.22
22 Amnesty International, Palestinian Authority: Defying the rule of law: Political detainees held without
charge or trial (Index: MDE/21/003/1999),
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/MDE21/003/1999/en/ (accessed 19 May 2015).
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ABDUCTIONS, TORTURE AND ASSAULTS OF MEMBERS OF FATAH AND PA SECURITY FORCES During the conflict with Israel, Hamas forces also committed serious abuses against Fatah
members and former members of the PA security forces in Gaza, including abductions,
torture, shootings, and other assaults. In all the cases that Amnesty International has
documented, those targeted were restricted under house arrest orders by the Gaza Ministry of
Interior or forces such as the al-Qassam Brigades at the start of the conflict, and then
abducted or attacked for allegedly defying those orders.
Scores of others, however, are
also reported to have been
abducted or attacked by Hamas
forces in Gaza during the conflict
but fear that they could face
reprisals if they reveal what
occurred to them or members of
their families.
On 27 July 2014, the Fatah
Movement Higher Leadership
Commission issued a statement
condemning Hamass house
arrest of Fatah members in Gaza
and on 4 August issued a further
statement accusing Hamas of
responsibility for attacks in which
Fatah members were shot in their
legs.23 News sources affiliated to
Fatah published the names of some 300 people in Gaza who they said had been shot in the
legs, beaten so that their limbs were broken, abducted and tortured, or placed under house
arrest by Hamas forces in Gaza because they were Fatah supporters.24 Fatah officials said
23 Wafa, Fatah rejects Hamas imposition of house arrest on its members, 27 July 2014,
http://www.wafa.ps/arabic/index.php?action=detail&id=180353 (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015);
Quds Press Net, Hamas imposes house arrest on many members of the Fatah movement and the
occupation targets them, 7 August 2014, http://bit.ly/1QXaOZe (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May
2015). 24 Karama Press, Qassam imposes house arrest on some Fatah members in the Gaza Strip, 16 July
2014, http://www.karamapress.com/arabic/?Action=ShowNews&ID=83959 (in Arabic, last accessed 20
May 2015).
A house arrest order issued by the al-Qassam
Brigades on 12 July 2014. It warns that violation of
the order will result in field punishment. Private
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that many of them had been moved to hospitals outside Gaza to receive treatment. Amnesty
International was not able to verify any of these reports. Hamas denies targeting or attacking
members of Fatah.25
A.H., 43, a member of Fatah, activist and former PA senior officer, told Amnesty
International that members of Hamass Internal Security force detained him as he left a
mosque in the eastern area of Gaza City on 17 August 2014 and took him to the outpatients
clinic at al-Shifa hospital. There, he said, they tortured him for about two hours by tying his
hands behind his back, blindfolding him and beating him, including with a hammer and
plastic pipes, causing him to lose consciousness several times, and verbally abused him,
before asking him about his links to the PAs security forces:
It was not really questioning, just a torture session. After two hours of questioning I
was asked if I had anything to say. When I said I did not, they said they would take
me home. They led me away while I was still blindfolded. It sounded like they were
a large number of people. I could hear their footsteps. We walked for about five
minutes then I was told to stop. Suddenly I felt my whole body being hit, this time
with sharp objects, which led to fractures to both my hands. They also used the
sharp objects on my legs, I dont know what they were as I was still blindfolded.
Those objects caused holes of about one centimetre in both my feet. The beatings
continued for about 10 minutes, then someone threw my mobile phone next to me
and said, Here is your mobile and here is a message to relay to the intelligence
service in Ramallah.
Internal Security officers left A.F. on a street, still blindfolded. Passers-by called an
ambulance which then took him back to al-Shifa hospital, to the emergency room. Police
came to see him at the hospital but when he told then that Internal Security officers had
inflicted his injuries they did not register his complaint, telling him that he should lodge it at
al-Abbas police station. Several weeks later Internal Security officers came to see him and
acknowledged the ill-treatment during his questioning but denied that they were responsible
for assaulting him after his interrogation.
H.J., a former officer in the PAs Preventative Security Force and father of four children, told
Amnesty International that Hamass Internal Security force imposed a house arrest order on
him on 28 July, but on 8 August he left his house briefly during a ceasefire to get food. The
next day Internal Security officers came to his house and ordered him to go to the Internal
Security detention centre at Deir al-Balah. There, according to H.J., Internal Security officers
blindfolded him, beat him, and threatened to burn him. The officers told him his beating was
punishment for breaking his house arrest order the previous day but they also urged him to
confess to acting as an Israeli informant, and subjected him to further threats and torture
when he denied this. He said:
While I was in the prison cell they opened a gas cylinder on me; a type of
intimidation. They opened it to frighten me into confessing. Every time my arms
25 Al Jazeera, Hamas denies accusations it targeted Fatah members in Gaza, 19 August 2014,
http://bit.ly/1Kjx5Qa (in Arabic, last accessed 20 May 2015).
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A picture of N.S.s leg show the
marks from his attack by members
of the al-Qassam Brigades.
Private
would drop they would hit them and my stomach. Theyd say, Raise your legs,
and, every time my legs would drop, they would strike me in the back and I would
find I had fallen on the floor tiles.
Internal Security released him near midnight on 9 August. He told Amnesty International that
he had been previously targeted by Hamas forces in Gaza on account of his role with the PAs
Preventative Security Force; he said he had been kept under house arrest during Operation
Cast Lead, the 2008-2009 Israeli military offensive in Gaza, detained in 2011, and three
times shot and injured.
N.S., a former colonel in the Palestinian
Presidential Guards, told Amnesty International
that armed men who said they belonged to the al-
Qassam Brigades attacked him on 17 July. He
had objected the previous day to remarks made
by the imam at the mosque where he was praying
that he considered derogatory to Fatah and
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. As he left
the mosque that day, he said, bystanders
prevented a group of Internal Security and police
officers arresting him and later he discussed the
issue by phone with a local Hamas leader.
However, as he left the same mosque following
afternoon prayers on 17 July, a group of about 12
masked carrying firearms, electric sticks and
other weapons assaulted him and told him to go
home and stay there as they had put him under
house arrest.
F.A., 40, a former senior officer in the PAs General Intelligence force, told Amnesty
International that masked men who said they were from the al-Qassam Brigades broke into
his home in Sheikh Radwan and seriously assaulted him. He said:
I was dragged onto the floor below our flat and placed in a corner near the lift where
they started beating me. The beatings covered my whole body, not a single spot
escaped the beatings with the back of the rifle or sticks; their imprints were
everywhere. I went to al-Quds hospital where I was treated. I did not go to al-Shifa
hospital because it is said that any member of Fatah or the PA going there would
end up with worse injuries.
After treatment at the hospital, F.A. said he went into hiding for a time before eventually
returning home. He tried to complain but no-one was willing to investigate or hold those
responsible to account. He said:
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